Length of essays

stinasavestheday
Wed, 25 Jul 2007 17:40:44 +0000

Hello! I’m new to this forum, so I don’t know if the question I’m about to ask is stupid or repetitive. I’m a senior this year, about to apply to some colleges that use the commonapp, and I was wondering how long some of responses are supposed to be. If anyone’s familiar with the common app, there is a section in the writing samples page that lets us elaborate on an extracurricular activity that we’ve been involved in. It says that it should be about 150 words or fewer, but then on the bottom it says “3500 characters left in your response”. My response is about 3400 characters, so it doesn’t cut me off, but it’s like almost 600 words. I’m afraid it’s too long, but I don’t think 150 words is enough to explain my full involvement in the thing I’m writing about.

Also, for the personal essay on the common app, it tells us that the essay’s supposed to be 250 words minimum, but it doesn’t say what the max should be. I just finished writing my essay, and it’s 1784 words. Yeah it’s probably too long, but if I make it interesting, would it be okay? I’m writing about a personal experience I’ve had the last year and I don’t want it to sound rushed or superficial.

If anyone can help me out here, that’d be great!! :)